I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to machines for reducing materials, including material made of wood or other fibrous materials, and more particularly to drum and disc chippers.
II. Description of the Background
Drum and disc chippers for reducing wood are generally known. New designs however are revolutionizing the industry, see for example U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/269,653, filed Feb. 16, 2001, entitled “Wood Collection and Reducing Machine”, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/286,477, filed Apr. 25, 2001, entitled “Wood Collection and Reducing Machine”; U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/076,638 filed Feb. 16, 2002; U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/232958 filed Aug. 31, 2002; U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/237007 filed Sep. 7, 2002; of which are shown as publication numbers 20020113154, 20030062435, 20030071151, respectively, and entitled “Wood Collection and Reducing Machine”, and U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 11/266768 filed Nov. 2, 2005 and entitled “Drum Shredder With Flywheel or Discharge Assembly” having a publication number 20060108463 A1, the applications of which are by the same inventors hereof, the disclosures of which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
In some operations first cut materials are sent to a second apparatus for resizing. Re-handling of materials can be time consuming, and the cost of buying and maintaining extra equipment is undesirable. Therefore, what is needed is a self-contained machine that can both reduce material and size it without the need for multiple machines.